AI War Facebook pageArcen Games' Facebook pageTidalis Facebook pageOur community forumsReport bugs and suggestions: MantisBTThe Official Discord server "How and where does one organize together for a coop game in AI War" is a question you probably will come across while playing, and since there isn't an internal matchmaking service you will have to find your games manually. As a prologue to this topic, here's an explanation from Chris Park on why a matchmaking service wasn't implemented in AI War:

Matchmaking services are neither simple nor inexpensive, nor would they be of particular help for this game. When games last 8-12 hours routinely, you don't need a matchmaking service -- you need a way for regular groups to form and meet. That's these forums, and we have a subforum dedicated to that. I'm sorry you're frustrated, but this isn't a typical RTS where matches last 15-60 minutes at most. That means that, even if we had a matchmaking service, there would be very few people on it because most people would be actively in game the majority of the time; the match time greatly exceeds the matchup time. The math of the situation means that no matchmaking system would behave like you expect with a game like this.

Also: given that this game is co-op only, it's something built around the idea of groups of friends playing together, rather than total strangers.

--- End quote ---

Please note that all of these solutions require you to have patience, and if you don't then how would others expect you to finish a multi-hour game? Hamachi is also something you probably will need if you are unable to port forward a router, and a lot of people playing AI War use it.

1. Using the Arcen forumsOur forums are probably the best place to find individuals whom are seeking out others to play with. The AI War Meeting Grounds is the best subforum for that. Be detailed and specific with both your title and content like your timezone and location, what expansions you have, difficulty preferences and et cetera.

2. AI War Steam hub sortie bulletin announcementOccasional announcement posts will be made here to gather a list of players who want to add others over Steam to form a group to play; you post your info and add or be added by others. Keep in mind that people who have posted on the older topics might not be looking for a game anymore.

These posts are generally renewed biannually to refresh the list of people actively looking for a game to avoid topic clogging.

3. Discord ServerSimilarly to the AI War group chat, our AI War Discord server is another way to both find others and orgainze games. If you have not used Discord before, you can access it from your browser, and run it without downloading any software.

The Discord server might not be an incredibly active place all the time, but it might be the best solution to matchmaking overall, from two-player coops to a full game of eight. Your best chance in finding a game here is to idle daily if you do not receive a response. People here generally partner up with people they trust that will finish a game, which usually means those who are regulars to the channel. There are are a few regulars who chat about other topics here too.

4. AI War SubredditYou might be able to find others looking for a game over at Reddit here. 200 320 subscribers going up!

5. AI War Steam community hubYou might find a couple people who are interested in looking for a game on the AI War Steam community hub forums, mostly from miscellaneous "looking for game" topics.

Spikey00:
Just thought I'd cross-post this from the AI War group to catch some of the new player influx--I'll give this a post on the Steam forums as well.

EDIT: or not, I see a sticky being sufficient. :p

x4000:
Good idea!

cupogoodness:
I'd suggest the game's Subreddit as well. Up to nearly 200 subs, several of which are looking for a game at different days and times during the week.

KingIsaacLinksr:

--- Quote from: mehok on July 14, 2011, 03:48:36 AM ---This is what the game ah, matchmaking? Solution. . .

--- End quote ---

As discussed at length...matchmaking would not solve the problem and would put financial burden on Arcen when quite frankly the "issue" is easily solved by just being social. Which unless your going to be mute throughout the entire 10 hour+ match, your going to have to do anyway. :)

Although I can't tell if you were saying that matchmaking is the "solution" to this "problem" or if you were saying this is the game's "matchmaking". (sorry if I'm wrong)